All Alone
by tmntyyh
Summary: The serum saved Steve Rogers' life but it was not without its faults. It was never meant for long-term use as Tony quickly discovered. Warnings are inside.
1. Chapter 1

Title: All Alone

Summary: The serum saved Steve Rogers' life but it was not without its faults. It was never meant for long-term use as Tony quickly discovered.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Inspiration from The Used's "The Bird And The Worm."

Warnings: Violence, drugs, made-up science, swearing, drinking, horror, angst, insanity, yaoi, het, smut, etc.

Side Note: I've seen plenty of stories about the serum breaking down due to instability and decided to take a turn at it. Future chapters will be longer.

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White teeth stained red with blood clenched together as a hiss came from the bloody man who crawled across the mud using his elbows to propel himself forward, his legs assisting as much as they could while he trudged through the thick mud. The warmth of his blood gushing outside of his the left side of body and across the taut material of his uniform was quickly wicked away by the bitter chill of the mud that clung to him. Bright blue eyes glared through the pitch darkness that surrounded him, wondering why it was that this attack had to have started around midnight and that he was the one to be volunteered to go crawling underneath a building. Natasha and Clint were far slimmer and could have easily found the case of relays that he was looking for instead while they fought against a group of amped-up thugs.

The wet ground vibrated around him as the flooring right above his head rattled, a large explosion going off in the background as voices screamed. The tones were panicked and thunder rumbled, bringing a soft smile to his face as Thor would make sure not to hurt anyone that was not trying to destroy everything...or take the last of those pastries that he enjoyed toasting and devouring by the dozen.

_"Steve__.__ Steve..."_ a voice murmured, sounding faint as though he was underwater, which could have been true if Thor was around and calling a storm. It did not stop him from recalling just who the voice belonged to. _"Hey, buddy, you can do this. Hey, remember that time when we were kids and you-"_

"Cap!" a new voice cut in, shouting over the amused and worried tone of Bucky's voice and quickly commanding the blonde soldier's attention. "You find the relays yet? It's going to hell up here and at the rate you're moving we might be better off sending Robin Hood down there."

"Hey," Clint called back with a snort. "Cut the guy some slack. It's easy for you to say when you're flying around and not mucking around down here, asshat!"

_"Can you believe the attitude on that one, Steve? Some nerve, huh?"_ The voices almost matched each other in tone and the soldier could not help but smile softly as he crawled through the mud.

"He's a Stark, Buck," Steve muttered as he moved father under the building, covering his ears and burying his face in the mud when another explosion went off, the building above him groaning and rattling ominously and threatening to give out. His ears were ringing as a large portion of the flooring suddenly crashed into mud to his right, sending up a cloud of dust and grit to stick to the wet earth as voices screamed in the small device in his ear, drowning out the thunder and screams in the background.

"Shit, they're taking down the building, Cap!" Definitely a female voice, the soldier thought as he elevated his face from the muck and wiped as much of it as he could away from his eyes, only succeeding in smearing the viscous mud across his face and cowl.

_"She's a real champ, Steve."_

"How are you holding up there, sunshine?" Tony cut in over the frequency as Steve continued to crawl under the building, looking for the small box that was supposedly hidden underneath the building. "Any chance you're going to find the relays before we have to send our favorite rage machine out to dig your spangly ass out from a mess of rubble? I'm sure he would love that, though. Hell, you can even give the big guy a treat for being your hero!"

_"It's official; all Starks are annoying. Do you remember that time Howard actually-"_

"Bucky," the super soldier called out as trudged through the mud. "Save the stories until we're back in the bunker."

"Uh, come again?" Clint called out over the frequency as Steve continued to move underneath the building. He could hear all kinds of sounds over the frequency; Thor's boisterous laughter, the Hulk's loud growls and heavy breathing, bit out Russian that sounded like it was probably cursing with the way the words were spat out, Tony's grumbling about numbers and words that made absolutely no sense to the soldier, and Clint's humming calliope music that reminded him of visiting Coney Island with Bucky when they were children before a loud click sounded out. "Jesus Christ! Move, Cap! Get the fuck out of there right now! There's no relays!"

"Woah, what?" Tony cut in over the archer's shouting. Steve paused in his crawling to look around him, narrowing his eyes as he saw that he had only managed to make it a few feet from the collapsed portion of the building, making out the faint shape of the rubble in the darkness.

_"Hey, Steve,"_ Bucky called out softly, getting the blonde to look over at him. For someone who was lying in the mud, the sniper was not looking at all dirty. _"It's good to see you."_

"Shit! Rogers, get the fuck out of there!" Tony called back over the frequency, his voice sounding panicked as the line was suddenly filled with white noise before crackling back to life. "-ing's rigged! Any means, necessary, Steve! You got that? Right this goddamn-"

_"It's really amazing how much like his father he is."_ Steve nodded before Bucky pointed at a dark shape sitting in to his far left. _"See what I'm seeing, Steve?"_

"I see it, Buck," the blonde soldier replied as he crawled towards the metal square, smiling at the ability to call his friend that nickname again. "I found it guys," he said into the static, wondering if they could hear him.

_"Hey, did I tell you about Peggy, Steve?"_ Bucky asked when Steve finally made it to the box, his mud and glove covered fingers sliding across the smooth item for purchase.

"P-Peggy?" Steve asked as he jerked to look at his best friend who was smiling sweetly at him.

_"Don't tell me you forgot all about the dame you were sweet on."_

"No, never!"

"-eve, can you hear me?! Get the fuck o-" the earpiece crackled once more before snapping back to white noise. It was distinctly Natasha's Russian-accented voice and the Captain could not help but frown at her language.

_"She wanted me to give you a message, buddy."_

"Sh-she... She has a message for me?" Bucky smiled widely, his gray-blue eyes crinkling in the corners in a warming way that did not fully meet the icy color of his irises.

_"Yeah, only for you to know and no one else."_

"Tell it to me?" Steve asked as his fingers caught on a latch on the housing for the relays.

"Steve!" a frantic voice cried out in his earpiece once more as a telltale whine filled the air around him, the sound so familiar but out of place as the soldier focused on his best friend from before the war, a man that had given his life for the greater good but was somehow lying pristine in the mud right next to him.

"Bucky, how...how did you get here?" Thinking back on the situation, Steve could not remember exactly how Bucky had managed to end up underneath the storage building beside him. He remembered the briefing from Fury, Clint's snarky comments, Thor's eager willingness to fight, Natasha dangerous smirk, Bruce's wry and worried grin, and Tony's salacious wink as they all stepped into what appeared to be a battlefield in upstate New York.

However, he could not figure out when Bucky arrived; certainly not before he crawled under the raised foundation of the house.

"Please, Bucky?" Steve asked, his curiosity about what Peggy could possibly have to say overpowering his need to know how Bucky, who he clearly recalled dying back during the war, the panicked look in his friend's eyes as he fell... How was the same man with him underneath the dilapidated building? Still, Peggy took precedence and he could always ask the sniper about he had survived and found him afterward.

_"Anything for you, Steve."_ The smile grew darker and his eyes colder as Bucky Barnes leaned closer, the air around him becoming colder while his skin paled and grew sallow. Flesh pulled away from bone as thin fingers clutched at the front of his mud-slick uniform, the mood changing dramatically and sucking the air out of Steve's lungs. He could feel the thin bones, strong and fragile at the same time pulling the reinforced material away from his chest as the image of Bucky grew more solid. His lips parted in a sadistic grin and once-white teeth rapidly yellowed and darkened, the edges becoming distorted and chipped. Fear gripped his heart and Steve felt his stomach drop as Bucky pulled him through the mud until their lips were almost touching.

_"You're going to burn in hell, Rogers."_

Cold, thin lips pressed against his own while dead eyes stared at him before the world around him shook and rattled. Pain seared at his skin and through his muscles. Steve thought absentmindedly that the building was crashing around him but he was not certain if that was all in his mind as the world suddenly grew as the dark pupils in Bucky's eyes.

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	2. Chapter 2

Title: All Alone

Summary: The serum saved Steve Rogers' life but it was not without its faults. It was never meant for long-term use as Tony quickly discovered.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Inspiration from The Used's "The Bird And The Worm."

Warnings: Violence, drugs, made-up science, swearing, drinking, horror, angst, insanity, yaoi, het, smut, etc.

* * *

_"-Going into cardiac ar-"_

_"Hang in there, Cap! You hear me? You hang the fuck in th-"_

_"-uck, he's a mess... Got any twos? No? Damn shame."_

_"-to God, Stark, you so much as peek at my-"_

The words were swimming around in his head and not making much sense. He had heard the tales of people in a state of awareness but not yet fully awake; a feeling of floating, of falling, of everything being fuzzy around the edges... None of that was what he was going through. Instead, there was a terrible itching, a crawling across his skin that was tempting the super soldier to lash out and scratch at himself to ease the crawling of flesh. Pain was a dull throb that flared with every breath that he automatically took while his mind tried to recall exactly what had happened, his body working a bit slower as his eyelids fluttered. Soft words were spoken in the background but no one seemed to be speaking back; one voice just talking to itself in the quiet hum of the room. He could make out the distinct sounds of a beeping sounding out through the room while the itching feeling centered around his ribs, taunting the blonde to dig his blunt fingernails against skin.

Hazy blue eyes fluttered open, the corners crinkling at the sudden onslaught of pain that flared up throughout his body. If there was ever a time that he cursed the super soldier serum - which the exception of not being able to drink himself into a state of forgetfulness, that is - it would have to be now, knowing that there was a myriad of medications and drugs that would be able to take away his pain but never could due to how fast his body metabolized anything he took. Immediately, his eyes took in the harsh white glow that everything seemed to take before sharp lines and angles came into focus, contrasting with the soft lines of color that quickly took shape of his teammates. Only Clint, who was snoring loudly in an uncomfortable-looking chair, and Tony, who was talking into what looked like a glowing piece of glass, were still in the room. If he had to take a guess, Steve was willing to believe that they were watching him in shifts inside of shifts. That way, he reasoned, that someone was always awake and by his side.

_"Welcome back, Steve," _a soft voice called to his left, getting the soldier to tilt his head and freeze at the sight of Bucky smiling softly over at him. The heart monitor spiked momentarily as he took in the image of his best fried, someone that he had believed to be dead. He tried to speak to the man sitting on the edge of his bed, his voice coming out as a slightly crackled moan.

"Woah, Cap," Tony called out as he nearly tossed his phone to the side, scrambling up from his seat. Jesus, you look like hell.

_"He's got a point," _Bucky teased as lightening lit up the sky, casting a bright flash through the room. In that instant, his friend had morphed back into the rotting corpse before flashing back to what he remembered his pal as looking like. That brief flash was all that it took for Steve's heart monitor to shriek in a cacophony of spiked heartbeats. _"You've certainly seen better days, pal."_

Tony let out a panicked shout when Steve suddenly scrambled out of the bed, large pieces of medical equipment crashing to the ground with the force of his movements before he could tear the wires and tubes out of his skin. Clint jumped to his feet at the sound of the shouting, his body snapping into an attacking stance and his face looking like he was not even sleeping a matter of seconds previously. The machines that had not broken upon contact with the floor let out loud shrieks of protest when the contact was broken, their sensors reading as if the person attached to them were dead. The soldier managed to take one large and quick step away from the bed before two bodies collided with him, the other men working to pin him against the thin mattress of the hospital's bed while he lashed out.

Tony had one of his knees digging into the soldier's thigh in an attempt to hold him down while both of his hands were holding down his left arm, one hand gripping his bicep and the other on his shoulder as he used all of his weight to hold down his half of the Captain. Clint, on the other hand, was holding down Steve's wrist and was using his legs to keep the blonde's leg pinned to the bed. Wide blue eyes flicked over to where Bucky was, his heart hammering in his chest as the dapper man smiled at him teasingly, moving to lie across the bed at an angle so their feet were far apart but their faces were nearly touching.

"Jesus Christ, Cap!" Tony huffed as the solid mass of muscled underneath him and Clint thrashed, the soldier eager to escape. "Calm down! It's okay! You're still here, still in this decade! You haven't been sleeping for another seventy years!" The platitudes were meant to calm him down and in normal circumstances it would have done that but Bucky was lying right next to him, staring at him Steve swallowed thickly as he tried to calm the hammering of his heart against his ribs, his muscles straining as they trembled underneath his fellow Avengers' weight. His mouth felt dry and his tongue heavy as he stared with wide eyes into the slate-colored orbs of his best friend who was supposed to be long gone.

"You're alive," Clint agreed, hoping to calm him down as he built onto the ideas that Steve was trying to hammer home. None of it was ringing any particular bells though as Steve continued to focus on Bucky. He knew what they were saying was right, could feel it in his innermost person that he was still in the post-Loki era, that he has not bounced back through time and woken up back in his own time. He knew that the archer and genius were really there, were holding his shaky and dehydrated form down on a hospital bed as his mind revolted against his body, his eyes joining in on the plot by conjuring up images of Bucky.

Part of him wondered if he was truly going insane. He did not know much about what happened when someone was dragged through time after making the ultimate sacrifice - it was not a topic that he had entertained in even his wildest of dreams. He could not think of many reasons as to why he was seeing Bucky all of a sudden. He had mourned for his pal, had known that it would take far longer for him to even attempt to move on from the death that he had caused. Heck, his friend was part of the reason why he was so willing to crash land Schmidt's plane into the middle of the ocean to save his home state. Part of it could have been guilt; he had easily figured that much out in his medication-addled mind.

It did not seem likely, but it was all that he had because Steve was not willing to label himself as psychotic just because he was having problems with seeing someone who was claimed dead seventy years ago.

"That's it," Tony soothed before awkwardly patting at Steve's collarbone. "Just calm down. We'll fill you in on what happened. No problem at all. Barton?"

"Hold on, let the guy's mind catch up, first," Clint said before moving to get off of his Captain. "How are you feeling?"

Steve swallowed dryly, wondering just how long he was out of it for his throat to feel so dry. His eyes flicked from Tony to Clint before settling back on Bucky. His friend had yet to move; still lying on an angle across the bed and staring openly at him. It could have reminded Steve of their days back in the orphanage and that tripped him up a bit on deciding exactly where he stood on the guilt-to-psychotic line.

"Hey, Cap, you still there?" Tony asked, drawing the soldier's attention away from where Bucky was lying. Blinking sluggishly at the sight of the brunette kneeling above him, Steve wondered exactly when it was that the creator of the Iron Man armor had let him go and decided to wave his hand in front of his face. He felt bad for not paying attention and causing his teammates to worry; he could plainly see the concern etched into their normally passive faces. "Clint, call a doc. Call a priest. The Vatican. No shrinks, though. Trust me, Cap, they're nothing but bad news. They always think that you have resentment about your father and Oedipal tendencies, which is _wrong_. Couldn't be any more wrong. I mean, you could get better help using self-help books and fortune cookies."

"Only if you add "between the sheets" after the fortunes," Clint added, winking at Tony before turning a sober expression to the blonde. "Seriously though, you had the hell beaten out of you, Cap. Fury didn't check into his information again...or didn't tell us everything he knew about the mission before he sent us off into the muck. That box of relays you were crawling after?"

"A big box of lies," Tony cut in.

"It was packed full of detonators that activated when it was moved out of range. The building was packed to the brim with explosives and you were buried before we could get to you."

"Which brings up the very pressing question of: What the fuck happened down there? Nothing's wrong with the com link or the earpieces. I've checked over every single one and even had JARVIS checking for interference. Everything was up and running smoothly in any kind of weather; hurricanes, lava, sandstorms, monsoons... This little pissing storm wouldn't do a single thing to the block out any of our voices. But you...you went silent, Cap. I don't know if you could hear us but all we got was dead silence from you."

Steve frowned as he thought back to what had happened while he was underneath the building. He could remember hearing the voices of his teammates up until he had gotten his hands on what he believed to be important relays. It was about then that his memory pertaining to his team grew fuzzy as he focused more on Bucky than what was going on around him.

_"Remember what I told you, Steve?"_ Bucky asked as he reached across the bed, placing his hand right beside Steve's head. _"Remember the message I gave you?"_

The words echoed in his mind in a haunting chorus as Steve swallowed dryly, wanting nothing more than something to drink down if only for the fact that it would cause a slight distraction.

"Hey, Hawkass," Tony called out. "Go get Cap a drink; he's been out of it for a while and I bet my best scotch that he's thirsty; IVs do little to curb thirst even if they keep you hydrated."

Steve looked up, his eyes watching intently as Clint left; a middle finger was flipped up but the agent offered up no other protest. Looking over in the doorway, Steve felt his body going still as his breath died in his lungs. "Cap?" Tony questioned, tapping the blonde's face before looking over at the door. "He's going to be back with one of those paper cups of water. Promise." He meant to be reassuring but the soldier could not focus on him, not when she stood there, staring at him with her smoldering eyes and brightly painted lips. She reminded him of everything he gave up when he lowered Schmidt's plane into the icy waters.

_"Hello, Steve."_

"Peg'," the Captain rasped, not even paying any attention to Tony or Bucky as he watched her step into the room. That would prove to be a mistake but he found that he did not care as she smiled softly at him.

* * *

Review for more.

**Infinitechange**: Aw, thanks!

**tora-the-devil-cat**: All will be explained in due time. I will; they'll just take longer because this one's going to take some planning.

**Obsession and Insanity**: This one's going to take a little longer because I want to finish it in ten chapters so the lengths will vary.

**vampyfreak**: Aw, thanks!

**BlackRoseKai**: Uh...no promises.

**AekoAeviAthan**: Ha, that actually made my day.

**ximefujoshi**: Aw, thanks! I shall, I'm just trying to figure out some plot to match up the beginning to the ending.


	3. Chapter 3

Title: All Alone

Summary: The serum saved Steve Rogers' life but it was not without its faults. It was never meant for long-term use as Tony quickly discovered.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Inspiration from The Used's "The Bird And The Worm."

Warnings: Violence, drugs, made-up science, swearing, drinking, horror, angst, insanity, yaoi, het, smut, etc.

* * *

He could hear the soft clicking of her shoes against the hard floor as Peggy entered the room, her dark eyes fixated firmly onto Steve. He could hear something faint rambling in the background, his mind quickly making the connection that it was Tony talking to him but that mattered not when she stopped right beside the bed. It had been so long and yet so recent from the last time he spoke to her. He promised her a dance; the Stork Lounge. And he had failed her.

She was as stunning as his fondest memories of her from before he had left to confront Schmidt; her hair flowed in dark, cascading waves, her lips painted a bright red that stood out when paired with his dark eyes, her Army clothes replaced with a red dress that Steve could only imagine what it felt like across his fingertips. In that moment, he wished that he had time to find a different way to save New York and the world from HYDRA. He had given up so much for his country but none had paid the price like Bucky and Peggy had. His best friend's life was cut short and he could only speculate on the life that she had been left to live out. Did she die alone? Spend her days looking for him like Howard had? Did she get married to some chap back in England and have children? Did she ever forget about him? Did she still love him like he never stopped loving her?

_"Hello again,"_ Peggy murmured in a soft breath, as she sat down on the edge of the bed, smiling fondly at him like he had seen women do when looking over their families during the holidays. It was warm and made him feel like he could possibly breathe again without worry. He forgot all about Bucky's message concerning the woman because there was no way that the soft woman, no matter how many years she spent in the Army, would end up in Hell, let alone say that she would see him there. _"It's been a while, Steve."_

Steve.

How odd it was to be called by his first name again. Both the Howling Commandos and the Avengers either came up with their own nicknames or called him Captain, Cap for short. He did not think that even Fury had called him by his first name. Only she and Bucky had ever bothered to get to know the guy before the serum and for that he was eternally grateful. Now, Steve was raised in a religious home but he supposed that years of being the weak punching bag had left him a little jaded when it came to what was right. He had come to believe it even more when he had lost his friend and solidified the thoughts when he had woken up in SHIELD's hospital room ruse. After all, if God was on their side, how could a good man like Bucky perish while he lived on in the Arctic waters?

He nodded slightly, licking his lips slowly in a vain attempt to wet them.

_"I missed you."_

'I missed you, too,' was all Steve wanted to say. He wanted to profess his undying love to the woman that he had left behind, wanted to make sure that she knew all the things that he wanted to tell her before he went under the water. Needed her to know how special she was, how she made him feel, how she lit up the room and made everyone focus on her dazzling smile...

But the illusion was cut short when Clint had sat in the same spot when Peggy was, distorting her image and blocking her from his sight.

"Thirsty, Cap?" the archer asked as he smiled nicely, holding out the little, paper cup with a small amount of water in it.

"Wow, you're an overachiever," Tony snarked as he shifted on the bed. "Couldn't find any cups bigger than your dick size?"

"Oh," Clint began to retort; his face was a playfully mischievous grin but his words were lost to Steve. Peggy was right there and in that instant, he had realized that she was not real. The archer would not have gone through her and taken up the exact same space that she was in if she was. And he could not be sure which one was worse: The realization that Peggy and Bucky were still dead and that it was all in his mind...or the fact that he wanted nothing more than for them to be by his side once more. The loss of his best friend had jarred him and while he still had Peggy by his side, he left her behind to die alone. He could hear his heart pounding in his ears, muffling the sound of his fellow Avengers as they bickered, his mind focusing solely on the guilt he was feeling: _Did_ she search for him like Howard? _Did_ she move on? Have children? Grow old? Grow _bitter_?

His questions came to a screeching halt, however, when he looked back at where Clint was sitting to see Peggy's head peeking out of his back. Her eyes were glazed and unblinking as they pierced him, pinning him in his spot on the bed. Red lips cracked as they parted, revealing rotting and cracked teeth as thin and worn fingers reached out for him.

"Woah! Hey, calm down!" Tony said, moving into his line of sight and cutting off Peggy from him. He only then became aware of the shrill beeping from his heart monitor, the machine shrieking loudly as he tried to calm himself. Steve sucked in two, shaky breaths as he became aware through the slight burn in his chest that he had stopped breathing. The action earned him a thin and terse smile from the energetic engineer. "See? There you go. Just take it easy and Clint will go get those horrible, horrible doctors to help you out with any pain you're having. And more water. Water, Hawk-Ass. Get a decent size cup and fill it to the fucking brim!"

Clint's reply, sarcastic and snappy in tone towards the brunette was lost on Steve as he tried to calm himself. These images were all in his head. He was just seeing things, possibly an aftereffect from having a building try to crush him. _"Is it permanent?"_ echoed through his mind and for a second pure panic gripped at his stomach, clenching and clawing at his innards as the soldier felt like he was going to be sick. There was always a chance that the serum could wear off: Erskine never had the chance to tell him what exactly the super soldier serum was capable of and while Howard was able to test some of his limits, he was fighting on the front lines of the war and they did not have the time to go through as many tests as Colonel Phillips wanted.

Focusing back at the rambling man in front of him, the blonde could feel himself starting to relax, knowing that the man was doing it solely to distract him as he did not really have any idea if the man was still speaking plain English or Science as his mouth moved a-mile-a-minute. He could feel his heart beating slower in his chest as his body began to relax and lose the tension in his muscles. The machines shrilling evened out and Tony seemed to visibly relax as well, his body slumping slightly. "Stay like that, Capsicle," he breathed in relief. "Think happy thoughts. Uh...kittens! Think of kittens; national icons have to like kittens. They have little noses..." the engineer said as he reached up and tapped his own before holding out his fingers to the sides of his nose. "Adorable whiskers. Tiny, fluffy bodies. They're baby cats, Cap. How could anyone hate little, baby kittens? Just think about kittens and Barton will be back before you even knew that he was gone."

Steve nodded slightly, breathing slow and deep as he thought to himself that there was no way that Bucky and Peggy were in this room. He was certain that it was all in his head, that he took a hard hit in the head and that everything would be fine. Looking back at the brunette, the soldier froze at the sight of something thin and gray pushing out of the arc reactor in Tony's chest. Confusion quickly turned into horror as the item pushed out farther, revealing itself to be the fingers to a hand. While the playboy did not seem to react in any way to the fingers, he moved forward at the cracked sound that came from his companion. "Cap?"

The hand suddenly pushed all the way through his chest, quickly revealing an arm before the palm landed on the bed right beside his arm. He scrambled away from it as quickly as he could, trying to put some distance between himself and the offending limb despite the throbbing pain as his limbs protested. Distantly, he could hear the panicked shouts coming from in front of him as shrill shrieking sounded out. Looking to his right, the soldier paused at the sight of Bucky's twisted face grinning at him. He could feel the thin medical bed shifting as Peggy moved to lie by his left, surrounding him with his dead past as his eyes locked on cold gray eyes.

_"Remember what I told you, Steve? About Peggy?"_ Bucky murmured against muted screams of "anxiety" and "breathing," his cracked and rotted lips peeling into a garish grin that lacked the compassion and warmth that he fondly remembered and dearly missed. _"Remember those stories we were told in the orphanage about Hell? Those nuns lied, buddy. Lied to us all."_

_"You left us, Steve. You were late for our date and we all needed you,"_ Peggy murmured in his other ear, drawing tremors from the blonde as her voice filled his mind.

He barely felt the slight sting of the needle sinking into his arm, unlike the sudden rush of cold that flowed through his veins. He thought back to his time in the ice, briefly wondering if this was what it would have felt like if the sudden impact with the water had not knocked him out. Two gaunt faces peered at him from the sides, the thin bodies crawling closer across the bed even though Tony Stark remained in the center of his line of sight. "It's okay," the last living Stark promised, his smile worried. The Captain wanted to correct him, to tell him that there was something very wrong, but he could not bring himself to open his mouth as his eyes fluttered. The room around his grayed and began to lose focus; he could tell that he would not be able to stay awake even though he knew that he needed to.

His vision of seemed to go as Tony doubled right before his very eyes. Right as he passed out, Steve realized that one of the Starks was moving closer while the other hung back and flashed him a brilliant grin that made his chest ache.

_"It's good to see you again, Cap. How's life been treating you?"_

"I promise you, Steve," Tony's voice mumbled even as his eyes slipped shut and he lost his grip on consciousness. "We'll take care of this and you'll be back to fighting the good fight in no time."

* * *

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**DarkFlameTailz**: That...is a very good idea. I might have him do that later.

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**Twisted-67**: I promise to update this; 'tis the season and I got caught up in other things but I'll be back more regularly after Christmas!


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